Review of South African AIrways flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg in Economy

90 Years of Awesomeness

Hello and welcome to a very special Flight Report!

This is FR number 4 from my South Africa trip and will cover by far the most popular route in the country going between Cape Town and Johannesburg. To put into context just how high the demand is, as of the making of this FR, CPT-JNB gets 322 flights a week. Johannesburg's 2nd airport, Lanseria Airport (HLA), gets a further 37 flights a week, adding up to 359 flights a week.

90% of those flights are operated by 737s, A320s, and Embraer E-jets on Safair, South African Airways (SAA), and Airlink. However, twice a week, SAA operates this route with the A330. This is mainly a repositioning flight as the aircraft is based in Johannesburg but has to go to Cape Town to fly the Cape Town - Sao Paulo route. It gives me a unique opportunity to fly SAA's A330 without having to fly a long haul to Brazil or another random part of Africa (although I was tempted, trust me!)

And finally, as for the price, I paid R2063.79 ($112/€104). This was more than LCCs (obviously) and Airlink however the price for SAA flights are all the same so I didn't pay extra for the A330 (although I definitely would have). 

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

Video Report

Here's the video version of this FR, it's got pretty much the same thing content wise.

Cape Town International Airport (CPT)

Here's the check-in area at 6 AM, around 2 hours before departure.

Check-in for our flight is separate from the other domestic SAA flights. The counters were actually located in the international section (the area on the right) despite it being a domestic flight. There's probably some logistical reason for that, with our plane parking in the international terminal. 

Security took around 5 minutes without much of a queue and here's the domestic airside area. 

Some shops on the right in case you get hungry or want some souvenirs. 

The seating here, the terminal layout is almost identical to Johannesburg, which is quite interesting. 

Our plane is around 30 minutes late arriving from Sao Paulo and here's a nice view of the apron.

In the photo, you can see:

A SAA Airbus A320 (ZS-SZI) heading to Johannesburg (JNB)
An Airlink Embraer E-190 (ZS-YAR) heading to Johannesburg (JNB)
A Lift Airbus A320 in the Disney livery (ZS-GAS) heading to Johannesburg (JNB)

Did I mention that CPT-JNB is quite a popular route? 

As our flight is parked in the international terminal, we'll have to board the plane by bus. 

The flight

Flight time to Johannesburg will be around 1 hour 40 minutes and here's our route:  

Boarding started around 45 minutes late and here's a nice photo of our plane. 

Some information about our plane:

Type: Airbus A330-300
Registration: ZS-SXM
First flight: 27 April 2017
Age: 7 years
Config: C46/Y203

Wearing the '90 years of service' sticker (see below), she's a fairly new A330 that was delivered to SAA in June 2017. She was parked in JNB from March 2020 to October 2021 following the COVID-19 pandemic and the airline's bankruptcy. 

Another photo during boarding with a nice view of the sticker. 

Here are the seats onboard. The load factor for this flight is around 40%.

Photo of the IFE (which we'll look at later) and the tray table. 

I like that 'power port below seat' sticker, it's really helpful, especially when the ports are hidden. 

The legroom - very good. 

First views out of the window with an Edelweiss A340-300 (HB-JMC) arriving from Zurich (ZRH). 

Pushback 30 minutes late.

Taking an intersection departure - that's not something you see every day in a heavy. ;) 

Sadly, not a whole lot can be seen after takeoff with the sun shining directly at us. 

However, you can see the entire city after our turn west. 

Amazing views of the nature reserve east of Cape Town. 

Let's have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket, which includes an air sickness bag…

… a safety card…

… and an inflight magazine. 

More nice views of the mountains in the Western Cape. The scenery around here is gorgeous. If you'd like to see more of it, I did this same journey on land (on a 20-hour coach ride), it's on my YouTube channel so feel free to check that out. 

Shortly after, the crew came around with breakfast. Amazingly, a hot meal is given out for this short domestic flight. 

And here it is. There were 2 options: cheese or omelet. I picked the latter. It's a fairly standard hot breakfast given (or used to be given) on long hauls. The quality isn't the best but I wouldn't be complaining about this on a long-haul flight so to have this on a 2-hour domestic flight is pretty awesome. 

And finally, let's have a look at the IFE. I hate these reflective IFE screens so much. Taking photos of these screens during the day is almost impossible - you'll see nothing except the reflections, making it a massive mirror. I know it's a problem that won't affect 99% of people (it's not too bad to use) but spent most of the flight opening and shutting the window blinds and messing around with different angles to get a somewhat usable image. 

Anyway, there's a decent selection of movies, including some recent releases and classics (although if you've read any of my long-haul FRs you'll know I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to movies). 

However, the selection of TV shows is almost non-existent. 

The reflections are so bad I almost want to blur out the faces on it haha… this is why I always wait until night for IFE reviews, which isn't possible for a short flight like this one. 

Music and games are also available. 

A fully interactive map is also available - pretty nice. 

All in all, a modern, fast IFE system that is decent content-wise. 

Leaving the mountains behind us - it'll be pretty flat from here on. 

Descending into Johannesburg - sadly the weather isn't great around here. 

First (proper) views of land on final approach. 

Welcome back to Johannesburg! Because of our late departure, we arrived 20 minutes late. 

There's no way I'm covering another flight into Johannesburg without highlighting more interesting planes. In the distance, you see the international heavies (Egyptair, Swiss, and Cathay Pacific). Another nice view of the Belavia Airlink (which we saw last time) as well as a LAM Mozambique Q400 (which I'll be flying on when I leave). Having flown in and out of here so many times, you kinda start seeing the same 'interesting' planes again and again haha.

Johannesburg O.R. Tambo international airport (JNB)

Yes, another JNB review. Tired of them yet? I hope not, since there's more coming! ;)

Walking to baggage reclaim. 

Another photo with baggage reclaim right ahead. 

No, I did not steal this photo from my Airlink FR… I just happened to take a photo from the same spot with the same angle, I am a creature of habit, after all. ;)

However, unlike my Airlink flight, I did remember to take a photo of the landside area. Here it is. This is kinda the 'middle' of the airport with the domestic terminal behind and the international terminal in front. International arrivals are below on the right. 

I'll end this FR here. The 3 days I spent in Cape Town is most definitely the highlight of my trip. It's kinda crazy how friendly most people in South Africa are. I had so many people approach me for a conversation (maybe it's because I'm obviously a foreigner) during my time here. From that, I talked to 2 relatives of diplomats (it's quite funny how that happened twice) and people whose relatives spent time on Robben Island (a political prison on an Island next to Cape Town during Apartheid, notable for its imprisonment of Nelson Mandela), It's really eye-opening to hear their personal stories as opposed to just reading it in a museum. 

I actually won't be staying here in Johannesburg. I've got a few hours here before hopping on another flight (which will be the next FR in this series). Thanks for reading and I'll see you there!